Abstract:
Iranian researchers in association with their colleagues from Brazil succeeded in the production of fireproof concretes with high raw strength by using nanotechnology.

Nano Bonds Increase Raw Strength of Fireproof Concretes

Tehran, Iran | Posted on August 18th, 2014

As the executor of this plan, Mohsen Nouri Khezrabadi won Gustav-Eirich 2014 international prize in the present year.

Shapeless fireproofs such as slow-burning bricks are widely used in fireproof consuming industries, including steel and non-iron metals. Fireproof concretes possess large share of shapeless slow-burning materials. In recent years and due to the development in nanotechnology, efforts have been made to use nanometric materials, including colloid silicon, as replacement for fireproof cement in the production of concretes. The researchers tried in this research to increase raw strength of casting slow-burning materials by using specific additives and augmenting gelation in silicon nanoparticles.

Achievements of the researchers help the development of a new generation of casting slow-burning materials with nano bonds and obtaining extra high raw strength paves the way for increasingly use of these products in consuming industries.

In this research, the gelation process of colloid silicon has been augmented by using appropriate additives, to the extent that the raw strength of casted bodies has increased two and half times, and it has reached the level of a slow-burning cast containing 4 wt.% of fireproof cement.

The nanometric nature of colloid silicon used in the slow-burning materials has different effects on the performance of the casted concrete. Among the effects, mention can be made of the ability of faster drying, dimensional stability, availability of sintering at lower temperatures and the creation of mullite phase inside the bodies.

A review on this research has been published in Ceramic International, vol. 39, issue 4, January 2014, pp. 3479-3497. Moreover, other results of the research have been accepted to be published on the same journal.